Today, I have a special report for you all. After speaking out about the conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, our inboxes were flooded with messages from individuals deployed overseas in difficult conditions. Below is an anonymous Q&A with one of those individuals. Please note that we had to keep the conversation free of any identifying details.
The Guard and Reserve were built as a strategic resource to be the force you call up when needed, not an ongoing force to keep deployed at length. Unfortunately, that’s not how they are being utilized in the current war with Iran. Guard and Reserve members today have been mobilized more often, on shorter notice, and for longer stretches than the system was ever designed for. In fact, in many cases the load is even higher than their active duty counterparts. They’re willing and patriotic, but they also want to see that time away from family and their civilian job is serving a purpose vs. soothing an ego.
As you know, this topic is personal to me. I spent twenty years in the Air Force and Air Guard, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even after I was elected to Congress, I stayed in the Guard because I loved serving my country and knew just how important the mission was.
Deployments can be difficult, sure, but if you know there is an end date it’s manageable. We signed up for this. However, constant extensions without a “go home” date, are absolutely detrimental to morale. I have mentioned before, but one of my rotations home was delayed several days due to aircraft maintenance out of my control. That created much anger, and a feeling of despair. And it was just a few days. This is far worse. Not to mention the civilian employers that are doing their best to “do their part” but missing their employees for a long time does real harm.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
AK: Tell me about the big picture of your recent deployment and its related challenges.
ANON: Big picture: shortly before the Iran conflict kicked off, many Guard and Reserve members were short-notice notified of being involuntarily mobilized for a period of months slightly longer than we are used to when being mobilized under a normal schedule (deploying for approximately 2-3 months about every two years). This news came as a surprise, but it is understood that the Guard and Reserve exist to be notified for short notice use for contingencies and in times of national need, so while disruptive, it is a known part of the job.
What makes the current circumstances different is being told initially that you’d be gone for a few months and now crossing 6 months and multiple extensions later with no end in sight. It takes a toll that eventually nobody is immune from, and that’s not to mention the intense experiences so many go through when actually fighting a war against a capable adversary.
AK: What does burnout look like at home and abroad?
ANON: As a part-time arm of the service, most Reservists and Guardsmen have careers and livelihoods outside of the military, including people who own small businesses. Those who run a small business who now have been away twice as long as they were told to expect are among those who are hurting the most. For many of them the outlook of how to keep things going is increasingly dire.
Our absence is taking a massive and unprecedented toll on families and loved ones, too. No one’s life is built to be sent across the world without an end date or to withstand what seems to be a default plan of continuous extensions. A short-notice multi-month deployment is disruptive to begin with. For it to keep dragging on with no tenable end date eventually causes significant stress and even harm to military members, their families, and their civilian livelihoods because no one can plan anything.
We can’t promise anyone at home anything and that is starting to wear on even the most resilient people. In the long run, being used and run down like this will strongly negatively affect Guard and Reserve retention, even if some type of Stop Loss plan is put in place to quell the exodus. No one in their right mind would elect to be treated like that and in conflicts past, at least they still had regular R and R. Those sentiments can be heard across ranks, jobs, times in service, and across political or personal beliefs.
AK: Explain what it is like to address concerns with superiors.
ANON: The superiors that are deployed with us here have been “feeling the burn” because they have been living it like everyone else. I think anyone experiencing this can see the trouble. Leadership at home station is catching on and are starting to ask questions and even advocate for answers to give to those of us down range. But it seems, time and time again, that something is being lost in the middle of the communication chain between them and wherever it needs to go.
AK: What message with a solution would you seek to send directly to the Pentagon?
ANON: I would offer a more detailed solution if it weren’t for OPSEC (Operations Security) concerns but I can say this: a rotation plan would greatly ease almost every aforementioned burden or stressor that a military member of any service and their families will experience when they’ve been no-notice deployed for 6 months and counting.
The “fog of war” that was there in the beginning has faded, and as the conflict progresses from major combat to whatever it is now, a rotation plan seems quite feasible. Military members, many of whom are Guard or Reserve have, and continue to, diligently carry out tasks and jobs on the far side of the world and have done so through multiple extensions. That doesn’t mean the status quo is sustainable, and limitations are showing themselves and can be expected to amplify and compound as this goes on.
Like the complicated and expensive equipment we use to execute the mission, the personnel have limitations and requirements, too. So do military families and loved ones, whose importance cannot be understated. To achieve and sustain the performance required of us into the future, a rotation plan is feasible and is in everyone’s best interest. The USS Lincoln provides some recent and relevant examples of what those human and equipment limitations can look like when sent away for too long with no end date.
I want to thank the member of our military who was willing to share their insights with me about what it is like to serve at this very moment. It’s not easy to be honest about burnout and the toll of open-ended orders when you’re still in uniform and still have a chain of command over your head. I want to be clear though, every military member has a constitutional right to speak up to people. This is in no way inappropriate or unpatriotic, despite Hegseth’s desperate attempts to say otherwise.
As outlined in the response above, there’s a fixable piece here: a real personnel rotation plan, with predictable timelines and hard limits on open-ended extensions, so no one is left guessing whether this deployment ends in a month or a year. Now it is up to us to speak out for the men and women in uniform who cannot speak for themselves and demand changes from our elected leaders.
Adam I am mortified. I just heard that the soldier that attempted to jump off the USS Abraham Lincoln may get in trouble and get drop and pay and or rank. As someone who works in behavioral health, I find it absolutely appalling and if this is the case, we need to speak out about this because it’s not OK to be punished for having these suicidal ideations considering the horrible situation, they were in, and God only knows what else this service member was going through..
Thank you Adam for sharing this. I just wish the American people would open their eyes and take a stand